It is often desired to provide electricity to areas away from pre-installed electrical outlets. A common example is outside the home, where users often desire to provide electrical power to outdoor patios and decks. Although many homes have outdoor electrical outlets installed on an outside wall of the house, typically only one or two outlets are provided for the entire house and they are invariably located a significant distance from where the electricity is needed. Currently, such a problem is solved by running extension cords from the outlets to the remote location. These extension cords are unsightly and often present a tripping hazard. Additionally, these extension cords may present an electrical shock hazard due to excessive wires which may be run to xe2x80x9cnon-permanentxe2x80x9d devices.
In addition to electricity, it is also often desirous to provide other types of electrical signals, such as cable television, telephone/Internet, and stereo speakers to remote locations away from a pre-installed source. The pre-installed sources for these signals are generally located inside the house, and any extension wires or cords must be run from inside the house, through an open door or window, and to the desired location. Similarly to the electrical power extension cords, these cords being strung from inside the house to the remote location are unsightly and may present a tripping hazard. Additionally, these cords have no protection from being cut, nicked, clipped or snapped.
It is known to provide raceways which can be attached to a surface, such as a side of a house or deck, in which electrical power and other cables may be located, eliminating the running of unsightly cables in the open and eliminating a tripping hazard. Such raceways are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,622,686 (Neirinck et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 3,721,762 (Gooding), U.S. Pat. No. 4,037,900 (Schmidger), U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,610 (Textoris), U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,849 (Whitney), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,756,933 (Pitchford et al.). However, such raceways are generally not sealed at joints, allowing moisture inside the raceway, thus making the raceway unsuitable for outdoor use.
Additionally, it is also known to provide electrical conductors integrated with such raceways. Such a raceway is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,875,871 (Booty, Sr. et al.). However, the raceway disclosed by Booty, Sr. et al. is limited by predetermined lengths or a predetermined range of lengths. This limitation restricts the ability to adjust the length of the raceway sections during installation. It would be beneficial to provide an integrated raceway which allows installation of any desired length to fit any particular application. The present invention provides such a capability.
Further, standard electrical power extensions, such as the xe2x80x9cYard Stakexe2x80x9d, manufactured by Woods(copyright), include only electrical outlets at the terminal end of an extension cable. Since cables which provide other than electrical power, such as telephone (for both telephone and Internet) and co-axial (for cable television) can also be extended, it would be beneficial to provide outlets for such other cables at the terminal end of, or along the length of, the raceway.
Briefly, one aspect of the present invention is an electrical carrier member having a dielectric shell, an electrical conductor, and at least one open channel extending longitudinally therethrough. The dielectric shell has a longitudinal axis and a plurality of enclosed channels extending longitudinally therethrough. The shell has a first end and a second end. The electrical conductor extends through each enclosed channel. Each electrical conductor terminates proximate to the first end and the second end. The at least one open channel has a longitudinally extending opening to receive at least one conductor cable insertable laterally into the at least one open channel.